50/50 in Science VII Trivia Quiz

Answer: False

The first quarter moon is seen as lit on the right half of the moon only from the northern hemisphere, while in the southern hemisphere the first quarter moon is seen as lit on the left half of the moon. It also applies to the last quarter moon, where it is lit on the opposite half of the moon to the first quarter, in both northern and southern hemispheres.

At or near the equator, the "boat moon" is seen during both first quarter and last quarter phases.

Answer: True

Depressions on the Earth's surface caused by ground collapse are called sinkholes. Sinkholes are dangerous, especially during formation, as people, vehicles, trees, and even buildings can get swallowed up by them. Sizes of sinkholes can range from a few feet to hundreds of feet in diameter. Sinkholes can form in any place at any time, wherever there is limestone or other rock dissolved by groundwater. Florida has the most sinkholes of anywhere in the United States.

Answer: False

Many people are familiar with these three states of matter. But there are actually four main states of matter including plasma. Plasma forms when incredible amounts of energy, especially heat, cause electrons to fly away from atoms. Plasma is what makes up the sun, stars, and lightning. In fact, plasma is the most common state of matter in the universe.

There are other strange states of matter - some are quantum states, like Bose-Einstein condensate and quark-gluon plasma.

Answer: True

The minimum speed needed to go into space without falling back down to the surface is called the escape velocity. To escape planets that have stronger gravity, we need to go faster, and hence have higher escape velocity, and vice versa. For example, the escape velocity of Earth is 11.2 km/s, while for Mars it is 3.7 km/s, and Jupiter's escape velocity is approximately 60 km/s.

Answer: True

Lipids are the category of organic molecules that includes fats, along with waxes, sterols, vitamins that dissolve fats, glycerides, and phospholipids. Lipids are used for storing energy and signaling. Cell membranes are also made of lipids.

Answer: False

Even given how broad and prominent Saturn's rings are, the rings won't exist around Saturn forever. Astronomers think that Saturn's rings will disappear within the next 100 million years as the rings are gradually falling towards the planet due to gravity.

Answer: True

The particles that can go faster than light are called tachyons, which were first proposed in 1962 with the name coined in 1967. Tachyons are particles that not only can move faster than light, but always move faster than light. In fact, if tachyons lose kinetic energy they move faster, because tachyons carry imaginary mass. If tachyons carried no kinetic energy, they'd be moving at infinite speed, meaning they could travel to a distant universe literally in a flash!

The opposite of tachyons is bradyons, which are particles that always move slower than light and have positive correlation between kinetic energy and speed.

Answer: True

Elasticity is the physical ability of an object to return to its original form once force is removed. For example, take a rubber band and stretch it, causing the rubber band to stretch, then release it and the rubber band immediately returns to its former state.

Answer: True

Logarithm is a function in which the base is raised to the power to produce the number. 2 is obtained as the base-10 logarithm of 100 since 100 is 10 to the second power.

Answer: False

Have you ever tried pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del and then see that all your files are still on the computer? If so, then this statement is fortunately false. Instead Ctrl+Alt+Del is a command to bring up the menu that includes an option to bring up task manager.

There is no way to delete every file using keyboard commands. Instead, you would have to bring up windows (or file) explorer, highlight every file and press delete.

Answer: True

Lightning is a brief electrical display, usually during thunderstorms. Lightning is the only natural form of plasma on Earth. The temperature of lightning is approx. 54,000°F (29,500°C), which is five times hotter than the surface of the Sun.

Answer: False

Earth does not orbit the Sun in a perfectly circular path, a fact which applies to virtually all other planets. Instead, Earth and other planets orbit in a shape called an ellipse rather than a circle. The ellipticity of their orbits is known as eccentricity. If the eccentricity is really low, less than 0.1, then the planet is said to orbit in a circular path. If the eccentricity is greater than 0.2 then the planet is said to orbit in an eccentric path. If the eccentricity is 0, then the planet's orbit would be a near-perfect circle.

The Earth has an eccentricity of 0.017, in which the orbit, viewed above, would appear very much like a circle. You may not notice it from just using your eyes, but you can prove it by taking a ruler to measure from the center (the sun) to the orbital path (Earth) on both sides of the long axis, then compare the difference.

Answer: True

Galaxies can pull other galaxies through gravity, causing them to move toward each other until they make contact. The merging process often takes hundreds of millions of years to complete. Merging galaxies is a staple of the universe we see. Our Milky Way was merged by smaller galaxies numerous times in the past, but 3 billion years hence, our galaxy will collide with the big neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy. Galaxies get bigger on average over billions of years due to the process.

Answer: False

Cosmology is the subfield of astronomy, where it studies the origin, history, evolution, and nature of the universe as a whole. If we add 'et' between m and o in cosmology to make 'cosmetology', it becomes a vastly different area of study than cosmology and is not even considered a field of science. Cosmetology is the study of human care, like hairdressing, skin care, nail polishing, make-up (cosmetics), and other beautifying treatments.

Despite the vast differences between the two, both cosmos and cosmetics (where we get cosmology and cosmetology) have common etymological origins. Cosmos comes from the Greek word 'kosmos', meaning "order, good order, orderly arrangement", while cosmetics comes from the Greek word 'kosmetike', "the art of dress and ornament," which itself comes from the secondary sense of 'kosmos'.

Answer: False

You are surprised that true is an incorrect answer! Even if you touch an object, like a ball, and you feel it then grasp it, then you feel that your hand has made a contact with the object. But in quantum physics, you're not actually touching it. In fact you'll never make any contact with objects, not even when you're moving or carrying things. When you physically make contact, there is a tiny separation between objects that are contacted together, due to electrons in their outermost orbitals of atoms repelling each other. This is due to the electromagnetic rule that like charges repel, since all electrons carry negative charge.

To make the particles themselves actually touch - or, to put it more correctly, collide - you would need the high energies seen in particle accelerators.